Martin Landau to receive career award at Israel Film Festival

Martin Landau, at right with Johnny Depp in his Oscar-winning turn in "Ed… (Suzanne Tenner )

Academy Award-winning actor Martin Landau will receive the 2013 Israel Film Festival's Career Achievement Award at the 27th opening night gala April 18 at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills.

Past recipients of the honor include Richard Dreyfuss and Bob Balaban.

"The Israel Film Festival is delighted to honor Academy Award winner Martin Landau," festival founder and executive director Meir Fenigstein said in a statement issued Tuesday. "He is one of the longest working, most highly regarded actors in the industry. For over 60 years, Landau has exemplified the best of Hollywood to audiences around the world."

Landau, 84, made his film debut in Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 classic "North by Northwest" and starred in the TV series "Mission: Impossible" and "Space: 1999." He's earned six Emmy nominations and was Oscar-nominated for supporting actor for 1988's "Tucker: The Man and His Dream" and 1989's "Crimes and Misdemeanors," before winning the award for playing Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton's 1994 "Ed Wood."

He reunited with Burton to provide a voice for the director's Oscar-nominated 2012 animated film "Frankenweenie."

Landau is also artistic director of the Actors Studio West.

The Israel Film Festival runs from April 18 through May 2 and will feature more than 30 new Israeli feature films, documentaries and shorts. Screenings will take place at the Laemmle Music Hall in Beverly Hills and the Laemmle Town Center in Encino.

The opening gala will also feature the West Coast premiere of the film "The Ballad of Weeping Spring" and the presentation of the Lifetime Achievement Award to producer Sherry Lansing.